The education consumer

Jan. 11, 2008

Paul Shisler, 11, left, greets his older brother Robbie, 15, after a special Brewster school district van dropped Robbie off at their Patterson home Sept. 13, 2007. Both boys attend school in the Brewster district, and the family says they are grateful for the services the district provides. / Joe Larese/The Journal News

Speak up

- Join the online discussion about this report; visit the "In the Schools" forum at LoHud.com.- Join the online discussion about specific stories; use the "StoryChat" feature at the end of each article.- Get more online discussion in the "Hall Monitor" blog at LoHud.com.- Share your opinion in a 250-word letter to the editor. To contact us via e-mail: letters@lohud.com; fax: 914-696-8396; mail: Letters to the Editor, The Journal News, 1 Gannett Drive, White Plains, NY 10604. Be sure to include your address and phone number.- Opinion-makers with more to share may submit a 750-word "Community View"; such writings will be considered for publication online, in print or both. Contact us as noted above.- Interested in participating in a "roundtable" discussion about this report? Drop us a line at letters@lohud.com. Tell us a bit about who you are; be sure to include your name, address, school district and phone number.

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No issue in the Lower Hudson Valley offers as much frustration as property taxes, most notably the school tax. Virtually everyone appreciates that they are high - so high that they are altering the courses of individuals and families, even whole communities. School boards and political leaders have long promised to rein in costs, mostly with imperceptible results. Our school-tax bills are as stubborn as the multi-headed Hydra of mythology and about as well-understood. The education consumer very often struggles to make judgments about the relative value of local public school districts and the jobs they do. Now comes a tool that aids in such inquiry.

In "Our Schools, Our Money" - a ground-breaking, five-day report that commences today -The Journal News and LoHud.com untangle some of the most vexing issues surrounding school taxes and academic performance. Raw data about student performance, home values and residential property tax bills for 52 school districts in the Lower Hudson Valley have been aggregated and synthesized -adding unparalleled perspective to the local education landscape. Stories of our times, about families confronting the dual pressures of wanting good schools and wanting reasonable property tax bills, are woven throughout. They reveal much about our schools and about us.

Something new

For this report, a research and analysis business run by Standard & Poor's developed a "data guide,'' which for each district includes a composite score on 18 state tests administered to students in grades kindergarten to 12 over the 2005-'06 school year. Such an assessment is brand new to our districts. The tallies have the benefit of providing a sweeping look at student achievement as reflected in a range of testing outcomes by each district's entire student body.

No, testing is not the only criterion for judging schools - and certainly not the best or most appropriate in all circumstances. But standardized tests across the state have the benefit of establishing a common measurement for meeting valuable state learning standards. The S&P research business, School Evaluation Services, produced what is formally known as "A Data User's Guide to School Performance, Home Values and Property Taxes in the Lower Hudson Valley.'' We think it will become a worthy companion to the education consumer looking to make sense of the monster that is school funding in New York.

Some key questions

Property taxes in the Lower Hudson Valley - on homes, businesses and industries - are among the highest in the nation. They provide the bulk of a suburban school district's revenue, less so in small and large cities, which are supposed to get a greater share of state aid. In the end, the money that fuels local schools comes from all of us - through property taxes, through higher rents, through highly taxed utilities and fuels, through sales taxes on purchases and, albeit less so, through our state and federal income taxes.

But with such a disproportionate share of school funding dependent on the homeowner in the Lower Hudson Valley, there come tough questions for property owners and prospective owners:

In other words, they address some of the major questions confronted by all families in the Lower Hudson Valley.

What's your take?

The reporters spent many months trying to get to the bottom of these questions -by studying the academic and economic data, understanding what they mean, and talking with local residents, educators and others to gain even greater understanding of the sometimes competing family and community tensions over education.

While the stories - in The Journal News, online at LoHud.com and on "NewsCenterNow'' -are not the definitive word on school taxes or school performance, they add much depth and perspective on the subjects. We think they will help taxpayers, school officials and policy-makers gain a better understanding of the nature of the beast.